Monday, May 05, 2025
The change that Reform is no longer talking about
An analysis by John Curtice for the BBC identifies that the vagaries of the first past the post system were magnified by this fragmentation leaving Farage's acolytes with far more seats that they would normally win with such a small share of the vote:
At the 2024 general election Reform secured 14% of the vote but just 5 out of 650 seats at Westminster. But crucially, being ahead of everyone else in 2025 ensured the first-past-the-post election system helped Reform.
Its tally of 677 council seats represented 41% of all those being contested on Thursday, 10 points above its share of the vote, a nod to both the nature of the voting system and Reform's ability to cluster votes. That boost helped the party win control of as many as 10 councils, something that Reform's predecessor, UKIP, never managed at the height of its popularity in the run up to the 2015 general election.
In Staffordshire, Reform won 72% of the seats on 41% of the vote. In Kent, 37% of the vote delivered it 70% of the seats, while in Derbyshire the same share was rewarded with 66% of all the councillors.
Instead of insulating Conservative and Labour from the impact of a third-party challenge, as it has done so often before, first past the post exacerbated their losses. In both cases Reform took nearly half of all the seats those parties were defending.
Up until now Farage has been pretty vocal about the need for electoral reform, suddenly he has gone all quiet on the subject. I wonder why.
